The noises ceased instantly, making the consequent silence sound like an explosion. I waited patiently. Slowly, a figure emerged from the darkness. It was a short, stubby figure that walked awkwardly, with one side of the body shifting fully onto one foot, and then the other side doing the same with the other foot. The figure stopped in front of me, and I could not make out anything about besides its shape.
She reached out gingerly, standing on her toes, and took my hand. I didn’t stop her. She flipped my palm upwards, and put her hand in mine. It was a rough, small hand but a kind one. It traced my entire palm and fingers, feeling its contours, its spaces, its wrinkles; and then moved on to my wrist, pausing contemplatively over the veins-as if she knew, as if she understood.
She removed her hand and did a complicated two-step dance that I did not think her capable of. The rustling restarted and figures emerged from the trees on all sides; some tall, some short, some walking awkwardly, some hunched over. They gathered around me, and took my palms one by one, running their fingers over it. After each one was done, they performed the same two-step, and after all of them were done, instantly there was a clattering of feet as they started dancing. Two of them put their arms under mine and gently guided me forward, dancing all the while. I was more amused than scared, trying in fact to figure out the pattern of their dance.
Soon, we emerged into a wide clearing where more figures were present, standing, sitting, and possessing the same bodily oddities as their fellows. My companions danced, and they were replied to with a different pattern. I waited while they all checked my hands again, and then burst into dance.
“Does someone mind cluing me in?” I asked.
At the sound of my voice, they stopped dead once more. Then they restarted, and there was an eerie beauty to the sight of those broken figures moving in the night. One of them came forward, and thrust my palm upward again, but this time took a single finger and traced out two vertical lines with a connecting central horizontal line, and after a beat, a short vertical line with a dot above.
I laughed involuntarily. “Well, hi to all of you too!”
This excited all of them and the beat increased in tempo as if they were greeting me as well. A few of them pulled me down and we sat. One of them pushed something into my hand. They were some berries and plants and they smelled delicious. I took a tentative bite of one and smiled.
“They’re very good, thank you.” I said to them.
There was a clamouring as they tapped their hands against the ground in a rhythm. A thought struck me and I opened my pack and took out some of my own berries. I held it out, saying, “Please have some. I actually grew these myself.”
Several of them took the berries, and I took some more out from my pack when I was done. It was easier to find food now, I didn’t need to hoard anymore.
“I hope you like them,” I said, slightly anxious as they chewed.
There was no noise for a few moments, and then somebody arose and extended their hands towards me. I assumed they wanted to feel my face, maybe check to see what kind of defunct taste buds I had, but the hands slid towards my neck.
Then they wrapped themselves around me in a tight embrace. More and more stood to hug me, their simple gesture of thanks.
When they let me go, I touched my cheek to find that several tears had escaped my eyes without my knowledge. I think they saw this too, because someone grabbed my hand to trace out three letters: W-H-Y
“I’m sorry,” I said, wiping away my tears hastily. “It’s been a really long journey, and-” Before I could continue, the letters T-E-L-L had been traced onto my hand.
“You want to hear about my journey? But...why? What could you have to gain? It’s just a story of a stranger walking on and on-”
My hand was squeezed and I stopped. I nodded. “Alright,” I said. “I’ll tell you.”
Everyone was seated and leaning in, waiting intently for me to begin.
I nodded and stood automatically, ready to adapt my classic storytelling pose. My body bent to create the mound when I stopped. I straightened and sat down among them once more.
Then I began.
I spoke for a long time, and they were all listening rapidly, which gave me the confidence I needed to continue. I talked for what must have been hours, but they didn’t budge, they didn’t make a sound, so my voice echoed through the dark Forest. It sounded as unnatural to me as it must have been to them, because they didn’t seem to be able to speak, and I had forgotten how to.
I finished, and before I knew it, I was standing. “I should continue,” I said. “I don’t think I can impose any longer.”
Before I could take a step, my hand was taken and four letters were traced: S-T-A-Y. Then the gentle finger rubbed against my wrist. I nodded slowly. The Voiceless, as I began to call them, hugged me again, the tightest hug I think I have ever received.
They took me to their sleeping area. There they padded down, and pointed me to a soft bed of grass where I could lie down. It was comfortable. I looked up to see that each of the Voiceless was hugging every other before settling down into their beds. I still couldn’t guess how many of them were there; maybe thirty or forty, and they came to hug me as well before they went to bed.
Lying down, I could see a glimmer of stars through the treetops for the first time on my journey. One star was shining brighter than the rest, and it called to me. It had stayed at that point in the sky for an eternity, waiting for the relentlessly moving traveller to bathe in the glory of its unflinching dedication to constancy.
When I woke up after a long-overdue deep sleep, the Voiceless were already scurrying around doing something or the other. One of them handed me some food as I woke up.
“Food in the middle of the night,” I muttered, thanking him. “It’s strange that I don’t find this strange at all.”
The Voiceless who had given me the food clapped his hands a few times, and walked off. I ate the food, which was delicious. I stood, and the Voiceless turned towards me, dancing.
“You’ve got to teach me these dances of yours and what they mean,” I commented, amused.
They took me seriously, and proceeded for the next few cycles to do just that. I learned the dances for SAFE, JOY, BYE, LOVE, SAD, HELP and a few more words that did not extend for more than four letters. They understood everything I was saying well enough, but they did not communicate by speech, either because they chose not to or because they simply couldn’t. It was only when I asked them who they were did I receive the only trace that seemed genuinely sorrowful, and also was more than four letters: O-U-T-C-A-S-T-S.
After I figured the word, I bent on one knee and gave the Voiceless a hug.
I stayed there for a few more sleep-cycles and I found that the Voiceless radiated happiness, and I did not need to see them to know that. They were kind to each other, and comforting, and did not need anything special to be that way.
It occurred to me that we’ve reached such a point where we have so many words for everything that we take pride in twisting words in intricate ways; pretending that those words matter in any way, that distorting them or making them fancier or prettier in different ways makes someone more clever; until we end up with a race of people that are so content in their own contemptibility and cleverness, that they forget that their words are supposed to actually mean something, that the words have to have feeling behind them or else they are simply ornaments to intellectualism, resulting in pompous, self-satisfied people that write pompous, self-satisfied paragraphs that ramble on without stopping.
Here, what they said meant something. Here, living in this heart of darkness...no. The Voiceless did not live in the heart of darkness. They were the Heart of Darkness, here where everything was stripped away, only truth emerged, and they were worthy carriers of that truth.
I knew what I had to do for them.
When I awoke next, I called all of them to the clearing where I had first arrived, and announced that I had to leave. They danced SAD
, when I stopped them and told them I had something for them.
I took a deep breath, and started to dance. It was a simple four-step dance, two steps on left feet at the back, and two on the right, forward.
“That’s my word for ‘heart’. Your hearts.”
There was a pause, after which they gathered in a circle all around me and began to dance my dance. One started, the second and third continued, the fourth finished. This continued the entire length of the circle. Their hearts beat as one.
I can safely say that it was the only circle in my journey thus far that I had enjoyed.
Just then, starlight passed through the trees and lit up the clearing. I finally had a glimpse of the Voiceless. All of them were of different colour; most of them were deformed, with swollen faces or body parts, some with clear disabilities. I don’t know what my own face looked like at that moment, but I assume that it was deeply amusing, because just then they began to laugh.
It was a low, guttural sound that came from throats that clearly had not been used for very long. It was not a pretty sound, but just like them, it didn’t have to be, because it was honest.
As I began laughing too, I found that my laugh didn’t sound that pretty itself, but it didn’t matter, because the Voiceless had given me my voice back.
23
Dark Night of the Soul
It was time. The air whispered it to me, it was written on the curves of the barks of trees, and the smell of it flew into my nostrils. But I didn’t need to be told. I knew.
My journey was ending. I couldn’t tell you then how I knew, but I did. So I also knew what was at the top of the plateau, beyond the trees.
At the end of your journey, you meet God.
I climbed peacefully and steadily and then pushed through the trees. The wide plateau was shrouded in darkness and bathed in moonlight. Coupled with the pleasant air, it was the kind of atmosphere that you made you want to dance with a lover. There were rows of flowers here too, though I couldn’t see what colour they were. But I could feel the flowers. In some strange and ethereal way, I was that stalk that swayed in the breeze, I was that bud that bloomed, I was that intoxicating smell and that symbol of love. The colours didn’t matter, because the colours were whatever I wanted them to be. It was the most beautiful and natural feeling imaginable.
The lakes were here too, glistening silver in the moonlight. Or had they always been silver? The lotuses that floated on them were silver too. There were six lakes here, the triangle and inverted triangle intersecting each other. In their centre, there stood the six trees, loaded with fruit, surrounding the banyan tree. I approached it and song filled the air once more.
I was already turning my head to smile at the lark that landed on my shoulder, and it stopped for a split second to smile back. As I walked, I sang with it. It was the song sung for the newborn child turned into a symbol of hope or a symbol of destruction; a song sung for the woman who has the choice to teach salvation or despair; a song sung for the man whose death would inspire beauty and violence hundreds of years later. It was a song of love and hate, of agony and ecstasy, of death and rebirth. It synchronised with the songs of the other larks to form a complete harmony, to achieve the perfection that is the imperfect.
All of these trees, including the banyan, seemed younger than before. The trees around the banyan were ripe with fruits, and the apple tree was standing just beyond. The hanging roots on the banyan were not as many as before, and all the symbols on the trunk weren’t separated anymore, they were all combined into one symbol that encompassed the entire universe.
“Oh, my God,” I muttered, overwhelmed. “Oh, my. Oh, m...”
As soon as I had said it, the song stopped, the world itself froze. I repeated it once more, the sound reverberated and the lark’s song returned, stronger now, like a chant. As I repeated the sound, over and over, everything reassembled itself before my eyes until the world around me was in me, was me.
I let out a gasp of ecstasy. I raised my voice, chanting and singing, throwing my head back to the heavens that were above me, around me and even below me. I looked down to find the crack, and it was there, glowing faintly beneath that dark canopy. I plunged my hand deep into that crack, into that glow, and clasped my hand around the pieces of the idol.
Instantly, the glow reflected off me until I was suffused with the glow. One tiny crack in the darkness is all that is needed to become the light in the darkness.
I took the clay in my hand, and I moulded it in my image. I made it a human, mouth open singing, with legs spread, one hand on its heart, and one hand extending towards the sky, from the unknown towards the unknown.
I leaned it against the banyan tree, plucked a coconut, and smashed it against the ground. I consecrated the idol and the tree with its water. The symbol and the idol start glowing. I gasped as the glow along the lines of symbol increased to a bright red intensity, combining with my glow. The symbol was slowly etching itself into my very soul. When the light from the tree faded, I dropped to one knee, panting. When I stopped, I was filled with such energy and power as I have never felt before. This kind of power could level towns, destroy armies, heal all the sick, erase suffering; all in the blink of an eye.
I chose to dance.
I stepped around the tree, grabbed an apple, and stood near the centre of the plateau. I devoured the apple in a few bites, and the power faded from intense buzzing to a steady hum, that synchronised with my chanting and the lark’s singing.
I waited for the right note, standing on one foot. When it was time, I turned myself with the other foot. I increased the pace, and soon I was spinning, just as the world was spinning around me. My glow broke up while I spun, shards of light flying in every direction, shooting towards someone across the world who was in need.
Soon I went into a trance, and I was one with the rotation of the world, one in its movement through the heavens. I saw the length of human history, from its birth onwards, all its struggles, all its triumphs and defeats, all its pitiless destruction of self. I saw its future, when it would rise from the ashes to do it all over again. It was an endless circle, and I was it. I was all of humanity.
The spinning grew faster, and the world faded around me. There was only me, and I was dancing with all the loves that I had never been able to dance with, all the ones that I wish I had, and all the ones I was to dance with. In the end, I was dancing with myself, I was dancing with God, and I was Love, I was God.
I reached the peak, the highest point of ecstasy and beauty; my soul was whole again and I was free because I chose to be bound in that eternal Love. An indescribable vision embedded itself onto my soul, one that I had been searching for my whole life.
The spinning stopped just as the lark’s song ended. I stopped chanting, the hum faded. It was all quiet, not the quiet of foreboding, but one of peace. It was time.
I walked around the tree, kissing the lark on the head as I did so. I put my head to the tree, muttering one final prayer. Then I turned around, the lark flew away.
The Path ended. I stepped off for the last time.
24
The First Storyteller
To begin with, I died.
It was one of the more pleasant deaths I’d had, all things considered.
When I stepped off the Path for the last, or perhaps, first, time; the world stopped revolving around me. I felt weightless, as if the force binding me to the ground had disappeared. Suspended a foot above the ground, my eyes closed and I went limp, my body still upright. The beating of my heart faded, the blood in my veins ran dry, my bones lost their mass. Little by little, I stopped feeling my body from feet upward. My brain was last to go, conscious of the fact that it was dying. Only my soul remained, and it rose to the surface, enveloping my entire body in its shell.
I don’t know how long I stayed there, because time had no meaning there. I might still be there, suspended peacefully in mid-air, or even dead on the ground; these words and thoughts merely a hopefu
l dream. It does not matter. Dreams are, after all, often more real than real.
My heart restarted, a tiny, tremulous beat that tried to get a sense of its new body; continuing after like it was the drumbeat to a never-ending march. My lungs were flooded with air they had never breathed, one that caused me to breathe out life as well as take it in. My veins and arteries were flowing with blood that was richer than anything they had ever experienced. My muscles were stronger, as if they had the power of this weightlessness to lift anything. My mind was aware of everything, capable of absorbing infinite knowledge and perpetuating boundless thought; and yet content without doing so.
When my eyes opened, there was not so dramatic an effect as light shooting out (For which I was glad, because as I’m sure you’ve figured by now, I abhor the dramatic) but the light was in my eyes itself, lending me the ability to see beyond what was on the surface. My ears were filled with a constant hum; I could hear that secret vibration of the world. I could feel, taste and smell every particle in the air around me.
My feet touched the ground, indicating the world was spinning again. The feeling faded.
I was in a wide clearing, surrounded by thick trees on all sides, lit by bright moonlight. I waited patiently, knowing that this was about the time when events were initiated by the introduction of a previously unknown or absent story element. Sure enough, a blink of an eye and someone was standing in front of me. It was, of course, me. I was so used to seeing visions or apparitions or whatever they were pop up that I didn’t even flinch. I merely examined myself, and saw that I looked angry but there was hope in my eyes as I stared off in the distance.
Another blink and another one was standing to the left of the first. The second looked determined, although there were traces of fear in my eyes. More of me kept appearing until within half a second, there were twenty-three of them, or rather, twenty-three of me.
They were in the middle of various actions and in various states of dishevelment, injury and despair. There was one on one knee, clutching something on either side, eyes blazing forward. There was one staring madly the tip of something he held in his hand that was not currently present. There was one lying down vacantly staring at the sky, mouth slightly agape.
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